The Empty Hammock (11 page)

Colón blushed slightly and a small smile played on his lips, “sometimes I am not sure whom I love more, the woman or the sea. There are so many other islands to explore and I am chafing to discover them; to carry out the plan of God.”

******

“Orocobix, tell me something,” Ana whispered to him in the dark, as the rain pelted outside.

Amazingly, the thatched roof hut was sturdily built, not even the hard downpour outside penetrated the interior. The constant flashes of lightning would illuminate the interior of the hut and Ana could see lumps of bodies as they huddled under coarse cloths.

Luckily for her, Orocobix had traveled with the soft cloth they had slept on the night after their joining; it was big and comfortable and would keep her warm.

Both of them had chosen a side of the hut that did not have many people. Ana realized that the wives slept according to families. So their children slept near them and the chosen wife of the moment, slept with the Chief, in the farthest corner of the hut undisturbed.

“What is it Ana?” Orocobix whispered directly in her ear.

“How can Oromico mate with the chosen wife with so many people around?”

Orocobix laughed silently beside her his belly rippling up and down. “Do you want me to show you?”

“No I am too private for that, besides isn’t that somebody’s foot?” she pointed a few feet from them, “I thought Arawaks slept in hammocks…in trees.”

“My father had one wife and we never heard them.” Orocobix whispered. “Besides it does not rain all the time and there are hammocks outside where a couple can sleep if they have a mind to do so.”

“Will I be your only wife?” Ana whispered in his ear.

“Yes you will.” Orocobix kissed her slowly on the lips. “I would forego sons and being chief for you.”

“Thank you,” Ana felt touched.

Was she falling in love with a man who could be a figment of her imagination? Could she be falling for a man dead for five hundred years?

“What are you thinking?” He asked sensing that her thoughts were jumbled.

“I was thinking how different the landscape is from the future: the many streams, the various trees and the abundance of palm trees.”

“How can the future be different?” Orocobix grappled, in his mind, with the concept of the same place looking different.

“Right where we are now is called Seville. At this spot, in Oromico’s dwelling are landscaped lawns, to the right of us is an old windmill. I…I…” Ana sighed sadly. “There is a stream couple yards from here, the river that I saw earlier will be a stream. We have vehicles that transport us and instruments that take us around like birds that we call airplanes.”

“Shhh,” Orocobix hushed her as he felt her scalding tears on his shoulder. “I love my ‘here and now’ Ana, the burden of the future is too heavy for me to even think about. Just let it go for now.”

Ana nodded drowsily. “One more thing, Orocobix. Who was that woman that gave me the baby? She is not Taino.”

“No, Oromico found her on a deserted island many moons ago. She did not speak our language. He brought her here and she joined with one of his men. The baby she handed to you was her first.”

“Do you see how different she is?” Ana asked eagerly.

Orocobix nodded.

Can you imagine men with her features? Pale of skin and eyes the color of the sea or of trees.”

Orocobix nodded again.

“Would you think them as gods?” Ana spun around on her side and peered at him in the dark.

“No, I would not.”

Ana sighed in relief. “No you would not. She is normal like you and me.”

“Sure,” Orocobix agreed. “Lets sleep, tomorrow you will help Yuisa with some women’s work. Since both of you are first wives of chiefs.”

Ana sidled closer to him and fell asleep partially relieved. That was one part of the battle over. There would be no ignorant Indians on the island of Jamaica when Christopher Columbus made his so-called discovery, if she had anything to do with it. She would use the strange woman as Exhibit A.

Orocobix laid in the darkness and caressed Ana’s hair. He had never thought of Agita as a stranger, mostly because she was Oromico’s serving girl for years before one of his elders asked for her to be joined to him.

Her pale hair, her eyes the color of the sky, had never before filled him with such trepidation.

******

It was still dark outside when Ana was awakened by Yuisa’s call. The air was cool and Ana wished she had a sweater or something warmer; instead she had to make do with another of Orocobix’s cloths. Her twenty first century body was not used to the elements. She shivered under the thin material and asked Yuisa for the toilets.

The Arawaks were a clean bunch and Ana was not surprised when she was pointed to the Chief’s toilet. It was a small hut that was a couple of yards from where they had slept. It had a hole in the ground covered with thatch. There was even a calabash of water in the corner to wash.

This was the worse part of living in the past, Ana thought of her expensive marble tiles and all her plumbing and sighed, it would have been great to flush.

Yuisa met her on the outside of the bathroom; Guani was leaning against a tree looking at her intently.

“What’s Guani doing here?” Ana asked Yuisa.

“That’s not Guani,” Yuisa said, looking behind her. “That’s Macu, his likeness.”

“He has a twin brother?” Ana repeated inanely.

Macu followed them at a distance; he was so much like Guani that Ana had to turn around every other minute to see if Yuisa was mistaken. Unlike his brother, Macu had his forehead flattened but he had the same look of loyalty that Ana had recognized on Guani’s face and he seemed set to follow her for the day.

Yuisa ignored him, so Ana followed suit.

“What are we doing today?” Ana asked eagerly.

Yuisa laughed. “The sign of a true Taino, the eagerness to work. Well, today we will be dying the cloths with dye from the jagua tree. The white liquid is now black and we need to dye the nagua,” she said and gestured to her skirt, “for the Chief’s house, and to make body paint we can store in these clay jars.”

They went to the hut of the second wife, Heketi. She was round with child and had many more children hanging around her. Yuisa laughed and picked up the smallest one.

Ana was trying to count them all and came up with six. Heketi’s mother sat in a corner holding one of the children; a thick plait of hair hung over her shoulder and the little girl in her hands was batting it and giggling.

“The liquid is around the side,” Heketi said, gesturing to the side of the hut, she looked tired. “I fear that this baby will be the end of me Yuisa.” She had tears in her eyes.

“You say that every time,” Yuisa hugged her again, “Oromico fathers healthy children.”

Ana stared at them in awe, why were they so harmonious? They were wives to the same man.

“Do all Taino men have more than one wife?” Ana blurted out.

“No only the chief.” Heketi answered her absently. “Ana, I am sure you are Taino…why the questions?”

Luckily, a little girl, her face covered with a fine, white substance grabbed Heketi’s foot.

“Not the flour again!” Heketi exclaimed.  She rubbed her back, her big shine stomach looked obscene in the morning light and Ana couldn’t help staring fascinated by her bulge.

She must be due to have her baby anytime now or else she would probably burst. She finally dragged her gaze away from Heketi and followed Yuisa to the doorway.

Yuisa stared at Ana curiously. “You grew up here, yet you speak as if you are not one of us. As far as I know Ana, your parents were Tainos. What other tribe do you think of when you asked that question?”

What could she say? She remembered vaguely that the Arawaks were divided into groups with varying cultures and languages; the Lucayanos occupied the Bahamas and the Borequinos were in Puerto Rico. “I forget things sometimes,” she mumbled.

“Come,” Yuisa said cheerfully, “let us go and dye clothes for the Chief’s household.”

The sun was just peeping over the horizon, when Ana took the last piece of material out of the black dye that was in a large clay pot. She grimaced as she looked at her nails; they were caked with black stuff. Her hands looked like she was working under a car.

Yuisa was painstakingly carving out patterns that were unique to Oromico’s household. Heketi just sat around, alternately rubbing her back or attending to her children or greeting the frequent visitors that came to her hut.

The village was awake by the time Yuisa and Ana headed to Oromico’s house. She could smell the aroma of food being cooked; children were running around and squealing.

On the slope that led to Oromico’s house a young boy was sweeping the path. Macu, who had given up on following Ana, was picking up leaves behind him.

Women were scurrying with cotton baskets on their backs to their individual plot of land to begin their planting. Beside every hut, there was a garden; neatly cut sticks enclosed the young, green plants.

The settlement was large and extended out to the sides. The Cacique’s house was obviously the focal point of the village and rested on a slope overlooking all.

Ana stood on the summit, trying to count the huts that she saw, not all of them were the same size. She stopped counting at two hundred. Some of the huts disappeared over the brow of the hill to the sea. She could see men in the distance building canoes, they were digging out the middle of tree logs and lighting the inside with fire, the acrid scent of smoke drifted on the air.

Some of them were even packing canoes with goods. They were obviously going to trade with neighboring islands or settlements. She saw them stacking pineapples in one canoe and wads of cotton in another. Even the duhos, the low stools that only caciques and medicine men were allowed to sit on, were being packed into a canoe. The men carefully placed the stools in their canoes.

The people of Maima seemed to be craftsmen as well as farmers who had enough to trade.

“Why do you stare at the sea so longingly?” Orocobix stood behind her and touched her lightly on the shoulders.

Ana leaned toward him and rested her head on his broad shoulders. “It is bigger than I ever imagined an Arawak village to be.”

“Most of the Nitayanos, like my father, left Maima to head their own clans. That is the custom when the settlement gets too large.”

“Nitayanos are the sub-chiefs, the advisors to the Cacique?”

Orocobix nodded and grabbed her hand and kissed her fingers. “You are the most beautiful woman in all the land.”

“Thank you kind sir,” Ana laughed. “You are the most handsome Taino I have ever seen.”

“Let us eat,” Orocobix whispered, “and then find a hamaca that is not too wet to waste away the day.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They finally struck gold near the new settlement. The men stood still, their mouths hanging open as if they were hungry.

Juan stood by and watched them as they eagerly scraped up all the gold they could find. Even some of the nobles, who were previously averse to getting their hands dirty, went wild. He was slightly nauseated to see their hunger for the yellow metal but curiously found that he was excited too as he stood by with Pablo.

“I promised the old Chief Guacanagari that I would visit him today,” Juan said sorrowfully. “But today is gold digging day.”

“Let’s go anyway,” Pablo was exasperated at the way that the men were scooping up the rocks and breathing hard. “It will be here tomorrow and the next day when the euphoria wears off.”

They followed their Taino guides, whose names they could not pronounce, to the interior where Guacanagari’s new village was located. The chief looked greatly improved, his legs were no longer bandaged and he stood outside his hut smoking.

He greeted them with his usual exuberance, bowing his head up and down and grinned showing his blackened teeth.

“I saw you in my dreams last night,” he said to Juan, pointing to his head and putting it into his hands. Juan nodded, humoring the old man. “You found a flower.” He pointed to a plant. “And you could not let her go. That’s your destiny.”

Pablo chuckled beside him. “You are going into horticulture, Juan.”

Juan didn’t find it funny. There was just something about the old man that had him fascinated. He could barely understand the old man’s words but he had the gut feeling that what he was saying was eerily right.

Why would he find a flower and not let it go?

“I have something for you,” Guacanagari ushered them into his square hut and invited them to sit on the low stools that was a staple in every chief’s hut.

Guacanagari pointed to the corner of the hut and grinned slyly. His men carried big chunks of gold to Juan and Pablo.

At first they were not certain that what they were seeing was right but after staring at the piles of the yellow metal that the men kept bringing, they were convinced. 

Juan looked at Pablo dazedly. “Are those what I think they are?”